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Alumni Mentoring

Mentoring and Success at Albion College

Who is an Albion Mentor?

Albion Mentors are Albion alumni, friends, and parents who have successfully navigated college and careers. They enjoy the personal satisfaction of contributing to a student’s growth and the challenge of relating to today’s Albion students. Mentors play a variety of roles, from offering basic advice about a job search to sharing critical insights on career readiness. Combined with assistance from the Career and Internship Center, mentoring can create a powerful environment for student success.

Mentor/Student Relationships: Expectations and Guidelines

Overview

The Albion College mentoring program uses the strengths of the Linkedin network, Albion alumni, and supporters. The Albion Mentoring Linkedin group is a subgroup of the Albion College Official Linkedin group. You will need to be granted permission to be a part of the Mentoring group and will be expected to adhere to strong ethical standards to participate.

Mentoring Topics

Topics that may be covered within a mentoring relationship may be as simple as questions about how to communicate a skill in a resume. Students and mentors may form longer term mentoring relationships that cover choice of career, success in college, and success after college.

Getting Matched with a Mentor

The matching process will materialize in one of a few ways: the public arena of the Linkedin group or through a student reaching out to a specific mentor that is a member of the group. Public postings allow the Career and Internship Center, Alumni, and Parent Leadership offices to monitor and facilitate matches.

Steps for Connecting with a Mentor

Make sure your Linkedin profile is up to date and professional.

Join the Albion College Official Group on Linkedin.

Request to join the Albion College Mentoring Group within the Albion College Official Group (located by clicking on the More tab and then Subgroups).

Post questions or topics where you would like assistance to the group. This could be a request to be contacted by a mentor or a question for the group. Your posts may look something like the following examples:

“I am a junior majoring in Communication Studies with a minor in Art. I would like to connect with someone with a similar background to help me explore career options.”

“I am a sophomore majoring in Philosophy and I have not yet chosen a minor. I would like to ask the group their thoughts on this topic.”

“I am looking for a mentoring relationship as I prepare for my junior year with aspirations of going to law school.”

“I live in the Detroit area, and I would like to work in marketing after I graduate. Is there someone in the group that I could meet with while I am home during Thanksgiving Break?”

Make sure that you always follow-up with mentor communications.

When appropriate, foster a longer-term relationship by providing updates once per semester to mentors.

Mentors are not official representatives of Albion College. Make sure to exercise care and be an educated consumer of information.

Terminating the Mentor/Mentee Relationship

There is no formal process to terminate the mentoring relationship. At any time, either the mentor or the student can indicate that contact is no longer necessary. Both the mentor and the student is expected to respect the wishes of the party requesting termination.

Meet Troy Kase, Director of Albion's Career and Internship Center

How does Albion's Career and Internship Center help students with career planning?

If you look at our mission statement, you can see that it is inherent that we provide tools and empowerment for students to explore and achieve their goals. To that extent, we provide career counseling, access to thousands of internship and job postings, connections with alumni, and opportunities to meet with employers.

What have you noticed about Albion students since arriving?

I believe that you can learn a lot about a student, or in this case, a student population through their resumes. I noticed how involved students were with on-campus leadership positions, research opportunities, internships, and jobs. I also started to see how connected Albion students are in the community of Albion through mentoring at Harrington Elementary, and other volunteer and internship experiences.

What's one thing students can do to start on their career path?

Take control. Really, it is about that simple. Students have an incredible amount of resources available to them on campus.

First, students need to learn about themselves.This is why the first component of the Albion Advantage is "Explore Your Interests." Included in this is getting to know your values and abilities. The Career and Internship Center has worked with all FYE students in learning more about their personality. This year, we are helping to administer the O*Net Interest Inventory which is a great tool that has direct ties from their interests to various careers. Additionally, we have the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, Strong Interest Inventory, O*Net Values Inventory, Values Card Sort, and Personality Mosaic.

While these are great tools, they cannot replace the one-on-one attention that students will receive when they come and see us in the office. Of course, these tools are also presented in group settings including in the classroom.

How can alumni and parents help students with networking?

Alumni and parents have been a lot of fun to work with on this campus. They are passionate supporters of Albion and want to assist students. Specifically, we have the Briton Career Connections event and the mentoring group on LinkedIn. The Briton Career Connections will be launched for the first time this fall. Alumni and parents will connect with students and help them learn more about their own career paths, advice on how to proceed in a similar field, and possible connections to jobs and internships.

Mentors play a variety of roles, from offering basic advice about a job search to sharing critical insights on career readiness. Topics that may be covered within a mentoring relationship may be as simple as questions about how to communicate a skill in a resume. Students and mentors may form longer term mentoring relationships that cover choice of career, success in college, and success after college.